


Secrets I Couldn't Keep

by katkrap



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, POV Clint Barton, POV First Person, POV Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-13 02:31:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katkrap/pseuds/katkrap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based after the comic and artwork done by Lettiebobettie.  </p><p>"You know, Nat has naturally red hair.  And she likes the snow, but she loves the rain.  She likes to lay in bed on rainy mornings.   She has this spot on the back of her neck she likes me to rub, and she particularly enjoys candle light.  And she likes to dance, but not when anyone is watching.  And when she is feeling tired and down, she likes to lay her head in my lap, and she sings Russian songs, and I don’t understand them but I still love to listen."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You know Nat has naturally red hair...

I close the door behind me and lock all four deadbolts to the safehouse before I start taking off my gear.  I’d finished the patrol of the perimeter for the third time, and sure... everything’s clear.  The sun’s just setting over the other side of the mountain, which is always good news.  Night means cover.  Cover means safety.  Doesn’t make me feel any better, though.  To say we got out of there by the skin of our teeth is an understatement.  I can feel the blood drying on the back of my right leg, but I don’t dare look at it.  Not until I get it in the tub.

I flex my hand and for the first time, I feel pain throb and pool in my elbow.  The hiss through my teeth is involuntary.  I turn my hand over and examine my knuckles.  They’re dirty and struggling to scab over.  I can feel the adrenaline in my system drop like a huge wet blanket and my whole body starts to ache, heavy stiffness in every limb.  It’s like weight training just to get my hand to my face to wipe the sweat off my brow.  I can’t be tired yet.  Not until I’ve gotten myself cleaned up.  I keep flexing my hands the whole way to the bathroom.

Natasha’s already in the bathroom.  Of course she beat me to the safe house.  I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.  I know she took the worst of that explosion back there, but even so, she hauled ass out of that place.  She’s already halfway out of her suit, the top half hanging off her waist like a weird-shaped skirt and absolutely nothing covering her up top.  Natasha is super comfortable with her body.  Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great she’s that confident.  I just don’t like getting smacked on the nose when I accidentally start staring at her breasts.  Right now, even if I wanted to stare at her breasts, I’m a bit distracted by the handtowel she’s got pressed to her side and the blood soaking through it.

It’s like she hears my thoughts from across the room because she doesn’t even look up as she mumbles, “m’fine.”  She turns from me, stares at herself in the bathroom mirror as she shifts her grip on the towel.  “Laceration won’t be requiring stitches.  Three bruised ribs, one potentially broken.”

“Oh, is that all?” I ask.

She doesn’t smile, but her eyes do.  She takes a shaky step back, steadying herself with one bloody hand on the wall as she lowers herself to the lip of the tub.  “The bleeding is slowing, and once I’m patched up we can keep moving.”  Her breathing is low, weak but steady.  Her eyes flutter but never look at me.  Not even as I sit on the side of the tub next to her, listen as she murmurs, “we can make it to the border by sunrise.”

My hand’s already in her hair, pushing it back from her face.  She doesn’t respond.  It’s like she doesn’t even know I’m here.  “We’ll worry about getting there later,” I tell her as I stare at this gash on her forehead.  It’s all covered in dirt and grime and blood is still weeping out, drawing big dramatic lines down her face.  Without another word, I’m across the room, in the medicine cabinet pulling out boxes of pills and bandages and holy fucking dammit they’re all in Russian gibberish so I just pick a box and tear it open.

Natasha gives me the world’s smallest smile and says, “you know that’s not gauze, right?”

I watch the fabric unroll into a huge sheet, one of those stupid-big triangle bandages that every first aid kit has and no one ever uses.  I shrug and wet it down in the sink.  “It’ll work.”  I squeeze out the excess water, watching it turn pink when it runs over my knuckles.  I’ll worry about me later.  I take the bottle of rubbing alcohol and drench the corner of the bandage before walking back to sit down next to her.  She doesn’t even look at me as I pull the hair away from her face again; as I tell her, “okay, this might sting a little.”  Who am I kidding?  This shit is going to burn like a mother.

Natasha doesn’t even flinch, not so much as a sound or a flutter of her eyelid.  I clean the dirt and blood off her face, try to clean the wound but the gash keeps weeping, deep and red.  The whole time, Natasha just stares at the wall, doesn’t ever let the pain rise to the surface.  I don’t think it’s strength so much as it is that we’re both beat as hell.  Her head starts to sink to her chest and that’s when I realize she’s not just tired.  She’s crashing.

I give her shoulder a shake.  “Nat, come on.  Stay with me.”

She doesn’t look at me.

I dig my thumb into a nerve.  “ _Natasha_ —”

“I hear you,” she says, words like a pitchless dialtone.

“Look, I don’t want you dozing off ‘til we get you patched up and get some food in you, okay?”

She nods against my hand.  “’kay.”

It’s not much of an answer, but it’s something.  I start checking her head for any other injuries, running my fingers through her hair and I’d be damned, but even if she was bleeding, I don’t know if I could tell.  That hair of hers is like someone tried to spin thread out of rubies.  It’s curls that are all blood and fire and colored glass and tangled in a hot mess and I know she’d break me over her knee for _ever_ calling her a _hot mess_ , but dammit, I can’t stop staring at her _hair_.

And there it is again, that sixth sense telling her I’m not focusing up anymore.  But she’s too tired to pinpoint what it is.  Or maybe she’s just happy I’m not eying her breasts this time.  “Something wrong?” she asks.

“No, just…”  I’m tangling a curl around one of my fingers when I catch myself mid-sentiment.  I clear my throat and release the handful of hair.  “Your hair, it… it’s _so_ red.  Like… _red_ -red.  All the way to the roots, and—”  Oh _damn_ , that’s going to cost me.

Then she does something unexpected.  She laughs.  Just one soft chuckle under her breath, all she’s got strength for, and she asks, “you thought I colored my hair?”

I can’t help but chuckle.  “Well, uh… there’s been some speculation bouncing around S.H.I.E.L.D..”

“Well,” she says, fixing me with those big blue eyes of hers as she gives me that impossibly tiny smile.  Her voice is soft, speaking slow but more awake than a few moments earlier.  “I’ll have to count on you to correct that speculation, Agent Barton.”

I smirk back at her.  “It’ll be my pleasure, Agent Romanov.”

 


	2. And she likes the snow, but she loves the rain...

I see light flash in the corner of my eye.  Once, then twice.  Natasha’s already got a mirror out, returning the signal.  I watch her eyes go to the sky and she sighs, a long breath of fog, white against white.  “We’re going to need to move soon.  Storm’s coming in.”

I frown, looking up at the same sky she is.  “How can you tell?”

She shrugs.  “Gut.  Instinct, feminine intuition, I don’t know.  But it’s coming in.  Fast.  It’ll be here in the hour.”

I give her a look.  “Nat, the sky’s clear.”

She smirks.  “They always are before the big ones.”  She tosses up her hood, tucking in every last blood-colored curl and, giving one last look at me over her shoulder, disappears down the side of the cliff, rappelling to the ledge below.  I wait for her to give me the signal, and follow suit.

We crouch in the shadows for the better part of an hour, and like clockwork, flakes begin to fall.  Big ones.  Bigger than anything I’ve seen stateside, these are the size of Ritz crackers and hurt your face when the wind blows them up in a mad flurry.  The day is still impossibly bright, making the whole mountain look like an over-corrected white blur, the peaks just jagged silhouettes against a deep grey sky cradling the complex below us.  We keep quiet and low to the ground.  Every now and again I stare through the scope on my bow to make sure the targets haven’t moved.

A breeze nearly rocks my balance, sending a flurry of snow over the two of us.  Natasha smiles, pulls the hood off her uniform and tucks it away into one of the billions of pockets on her suit.  The snow sends that hair of hers whipping across her face and she closes her eyes, shakes her hair loose.  “I love snowstorms,” she tells me.

I frown, remembering the mission in Seattle.  “I thought you loved the rain.”

She shakes her head, snow settling into those locks, a strange dichotomy of color as her lips part into the a smile, soft laughter pursing her lips.  “Fair enough,” she says.  “I _like_ the snow, but yeah… I _love_ the rain.”

 


	3. She likes to lay in bed on rainy mornings...

It’s not like it is in the movies, y’know?  No one jumps up in the air, sits bolt upright, breathing hard and covered in sweat when you come back from a nightmare.  At least I don’t.  Not anymore.  There’s a trick to that, I think.  Every time I lay me down to sleep, I make sure to tell myself exactly where I am, exactly what’s going on, and exactly what I can expect.

This time is different.  I don’t know where I am.  I don’t know how I got here.  I stare at a cold white ceiling, too sore to move, and try to retrace my steps.  I remember there was screaming and I remember the building collapsing and I remember watching all that light get swallowed up in dust and trying to move faster than the stones were falling and I remember knowing there was no chance in hell I’d ever make it out in time and still running anyway and…

“Hey.”

I manage to turn my head toward the sound of Natasha’s voice, and that’s when I realize I’m hooked up to an oxygen tank.  I look down at my arm to see an IV sticking out, follow it to the dripping bag and the charts that show my heart rate and oxygen levels.  I turn back to look at her, lying beside me on the bed that isn’t actually large enough to hold the both of us but somehow is.  “Where are we?” I ask.

“Hospital.”

“What hospital?”

She smirks.  “A safe one.”

“How’d I get here?”

“It’s a long, tedious story I won’t bore you with right now,” Natasha says, taking my hand and pulling it into her lap.  She begins toying with the medical bracelet on my wrist.  I can’t help but stare at her.  She looks like hell.  She’s got makeup on to cover it, but we’ve worked together long enough I know what her brave-face looks like.  I can see the tint of dark circles under her eyes.  I can see the inside of her lower lip has been gnawed raw, and that she’s nibbled her fingernails to the quick.

I try to smile, but damn it, even that hurts.  “You sleep at all since we got here?”

Natasha doesn’t look at me, just fiddles with the medical bracelet, fingers tracing the embossed letters.  “I’m not tired.”

“And I’m not an archer.  Nat, I call bullshit.”

She doesn’t say anything.

For a long while, we lie there in silence, listening to the rain pounding on the window outside.  She just holds my hand, tracing the callouses on my knuckles in silence.

I end up being the one to speak first.  “Sorry if I made you worry.”

Her eyes flick to mine and hold.  It feels like years before she gives a shrug and a resigned little sigh.  “No harm done,” she says, settling her head on my shoulder as I close my eyes.  “Besides, this wouldn’t be the first morning we’ve spent in bed watching the rain.”

I smile, but keep my eyes closed.  Sleep’s already dragging me down, filling my pockets with stones and sending me to the bottom of the river.  “Sorry we’re stuck doing it from a hospital bed,” I mumble.

She keeps stroking my hand, head on my shoulder, holding onto me like a lifeline.  “I don’t mind.”


	4. She has this spot on the back of her neck she likes me to rub...

“You okay?”

Natasha looks up from where she’s sitting; the small bench just outside the women’s showers, the one that lines the long mirror by the lockers.  Her back is to the mirror, shoulders hunched and shaking as she stares at the blank steel-enforced wall.  She’s naked as a jaybird and holding a pair of scissors in her hands.   On the floor all around her is a good twelve or more inches red hair.  Her hair.  All chopped off at wrong angles and various lengths.  When she finally drags her gaze up to mine, she looks frightened.  Like a kid caught doing something wrong.  Her voice is soft, nearly masking the hysteric element in it.  “I had to do it, Clint.”

“Okay.”

“No, you don’t understand.  It was driving me crazy.”

“Okay.”

Her jaw goes tight but her voice stays level.  Her grip on the scissors threatens to break the plastic.  “Stop _saying_ that, Clint.  It’s _not_ okay, it—”

“Nat…”  I brush a fistful of hair off the bench and sit down next to her.  “Look at me.”

She does.

“How long have we been partners?”

She twists the scissors around a finger, nodding to herself.  She repeats the words I always tell her.  “ _Long enough.”_

“That’s right.”  I put an arm around her shoulders and give her a squeeze.  “You want to cut your hair, I’m not going to get upset.  If you’re cutting it for some other reason, something else you’re trying to fix and you don’t know how then, hey… I’d rather you come talk to me.”

She sniffs hard, eyes taking in all the hair pooled around her ankles and she looks back up at me.  “I look like a mess, don’t I?”

I run my hand through the back of her hair.  “Nah.  Just… different.”

She swallows.  “Good different or bad different?”

I smirk and begin rubbing her neck.  “ _Sexy_ different.”

She chuckles, closing her eyes.  “Now you’re just sound like you’re trying to get laid.”

I smile.  “I don’t even know what you’re implying, Agent Romanov.”

I rub my fingers into her neck, pressing harder.  Her shoulders go tight and with a shudder, some of the tension pulls loose.  She lets out a breath.  “Right there,” she murmurs.  “That spot right there, just dig your knuckle in and…”  Another breath.  “That’s it.”  She sighs, eyes opening as I continue rubbing the spot.  “Oh God,” she mumbles, too tired to enter a true panic as she picks of a handful of the red.  “My hair.”

“You look beautiful, Nat,”  I tell her, still rubbing that spot.  “Nothing’s going to change that.”

Her eyes close and she smiles.  For a while, she says nothing.  When she finally does, it’s hesitant.  _Sincere_. 

“Thank you, Clint.”

 


End file.
